>i;y 



'^\ 



M?fc^ly to Hon. E. S.'B 



)/ y 


i"Y<. I 


S?^^'^"' 


H^ 


^/S - 


^ 


/'>*'^ 


\ i 


^^.-/- 


¥i 


_^ 




» 





ra 



w 



Sf 



eecnes 



h 



7 



Hon. 0'"K. Sincrlct 



on 



-fi K 



l^Sl^SVfpi 






A REPLY TO HON. E. S. BRAGG. 



SPEECHES 



HON. jf^Rf CHALMERS, 

HON. C. E. HOOKER, A^-D I>Of Mississippi, 

HON. 0. R. SINGLETON, 



l.EaVERi;U IS THK 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UKITED STATES, 



February 1, 1879 



WASHINGTON. 
1879. 



E.^s& 






SPEECH 



HON. J. K. CHALMERS. 



Tbt' House having under cousuleration the hill (H. Tl. No. 6131) lor the relief of 
IMagaie Barron and Henry P. Gorman and Walter Gorman- 
Mr. CHALMERS said: 

Mr. Speaker: I care nothiug for the payment of southern war 
claims to southern loyalists, for if they Tvere loyal then to the Union, 
they -were disloyal to everything that I held dear. But that there 
were men in the South who were faithful to the flag of the Union 
in the midst of a terrible trial to their faith is unquestionably true, 
and I do not envy the cheap political capital that a Union soldier 
can make by telling such men that he has no more coniidence in 
their honesty than a mouse has in a dead cat stutfed with straw. 
Under the rules of civilized warfare, which supi)lanted the barba- 
rous usages of Tamerlane and Gheugis Khan, everj- nation has paid 
to individuals in the enemy's country for supplies taken to subsist 
their armies in the field. This Government refused to pay such claims 
to enemies in the South, but resolved to pay all such claims when 
presented by loyal men within two years when their loyalty could 
be established in its own courts. The claim now under consideration 
comes from minors and women, against whom statutes of limitation 
seldom run, and the Committee on War Claims has recommended that 
their claim shall be heard and adjudged by the courts, notwithstand- 
ing the bar of the^statute of limitations. " The gentleman from Wis- 
consin [Mr. BRAG(r] objects, and taking advantage of the well-known 
opposition everywhere to war claims, seeks to blend them with claims 
for southern improvements, and endeavors to throw the odor of his 
dead cat over all demands coming from the South. 

With a remarka.ble tendency to suspect fraud, he declares himself 
in advance unwilling to trust the honesty of either the claimants or 
the court. Such readiness to suspect corruption in others sometimes 
indicates an innate tendency to corruption in ourselves, and I am 
therefore not willing to charge corruption upon other men. I am here 
to do justice to all claimants, I hope without passion and without 
prejudice. The war and its issues are certainly dead with me. I have 
now but one political faith, and that is to preserve inviolate our local 
self-government ; and but one political hope, and that is to build up 
the waste places in the South made desolate in war. 

During last session I called attention to the difference in the spirit 
exhibited by northern republicans to improve a republican South and 
northern democrats to improve a democratic South. I now call atten- 
tion to the speech of the gentleman from Wisconsin, [Mr. Bragg,] 
not the one toned down in the Record next day, but the one made 
here and partially published in the New York Herald, and contrast 



It with tlio declarations of another distinguished Union soldier from 
New Hampshire, [Mr. Blaik,] both of which appeared in the Recori> 
of the same day. In the Record he speaks as follows : 

Mr. E»AG<4. The gentleman from ISIortb Carolina says that 95 per cent, of Die 
population of the South Avere true to the confederacy. That recalls to my mind the 
very eloquent remarks made yesterday by the gentleman from Mississippi, [Mr. 
Hooker. 1 I -n-as astonished that a claim so exceedingly loyal as this should find 
the gentleman from Mississippi as its champion. When did the Yicksbnrgb dis- 
tiict before send a man bere who represented the loyal people of that district, who 
should stand here and sing piaiscs and chant ppeaiis in honor of the loyal South- 
erners. [Laughter.] Ay. when I heard that speech, and saw in my mind's eye the 
long array of loyal claimants, and thought of their antecedents, I felt like saying 
to tiiem what tlie mouse said when it saw the old cat hanging up against the wall - 
"Ob, you are there, my old friend, are you ? You may stay there, for I would noE 
tnist you though your" skin was stulfed with straw." [Laughter.] 

Mr.' Chalmers." I would like to say to the gentleman that my colleague [Mr. 
HOOKEU] is now out. He kept quiet the other day wben my colleague was present. 
I do not think he should assail him behind his back, 

Mr. Bragg. It is not my purpose to assail any man ; but if the geutlenian says 
that 1 say behind bis back what I would not say to his face, be mistakes the man 
wbom he calls to order. 
I beg pardon of the House if I hare improperly alluded to the speech which the 
. gentle"man from Mississippi made yesterday in support of this claim ; but I have 
oot tired of seeing claims come here in one form, which, when this House expresses 
its sense upon them, are suddenly diverted into another channel, and of hearing 
persons talk about judicial examining and making laws fixing the rules of evidencer 
to tie up the court, and then send the matter to accounting otficers to determine 
Avhat the value of the property taken was. 

I would like to remind the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Keifer] how he quoted in 
his famous speech against the William and Mary College the well-settled law that 
no nation is responsible for the torts of its officers or soldiers, for the destruction 
of property in the course of war in insurrectionary territory ; but, as I said, there 
has been in this House repeatedly a taunt thrown at us, and I regret to say that it 
comes from Mississippi. 

AVe have been taunted with the $34,000,000 in the Treasury that belong to some 
one unknown or to the Government as proceeds of abandoned pi'operty and ought 
to be distributed in the South. 

I would ask these gentlemen to take their eyes off from the $34,000,000 for a mo- 
ment if they want to appreciate how we feel. Let them turn the glass over and 
look at another view— a sea of blood— thousands and tens of thousands of the best 
men in the land, Xorth and South, weltering in their gore. Let them hear the cries 
of the wounded man from the battle-field as the cold chill of death strikes hini, 
and by the cessation of the groans you knew that one more soul had gone to Ms 
final account. 

Let them go and hear the piteous moans from the hospitals ; let them go to the 
hill-sides and mountain-tops and to the valleys where thousands aud hundreds of 
thousands are in mourning. 

Then let them look at what is of the least account in the reckoning, the thou- 
sands of millions, the billions of money that were spent to put down this war ; and 
when they place all these on the debtor side of the account, 1 would like to have 
them stri'ke the balance— show, if they can, that the .$34,000,000 of credit which be- , 
longs to somebody, they do not know whom, overcome the entries on the debit side. 
I am not willing to sit here as the Representative of my constituents and allow 
these measures to be brought up in one form or another; from one member and 
another ; from one committee and another, for the purpose of getting oioney out of 
the Treasury on the plea of loyalty. 

These loyal men of the South are so few that the evil that will be done by leaving 
them out is nothing in comparison with the great evil that will be done if we open 
the door and allow the $17,000,000 for claims upon our Calendar to be passed and 
appropriations made for the benefit of men on the plea that they were loyal people 
of the South. •. • • 3 

I have here time and again heard a threat thrown to the democracy upon this side 
of the House which I have thought for a long time needed an answer, and it came 
from Mississippi. I have beard it said here upon the floor of the House that unle^^s 
the democracv of the North is more liberal, that unless they would open their 
hands and give out money more lavishly from the Treasury, the solid South would 
soon'go over to the other side. 

I say, as one of the Representatives of the democracy of the Xorth, that if there 
are any men in the South who propose to belong to the democratic party simply for 
the reason that the dtiors of the Treasury are to be opened to them, the gooner they 
go over the better for them, the better for our party ; and when the people of this- 



coTintry see and feel, as they are beginninfr to do. that tliey can tru3t tlie interests 
of the country with the democratic party oi' tiie Noith and South, then we can make 
recruits in the Xorthern States that will fill up our ranks to the maximum. 

We have no need of that class of gentlemen that we can only hold to party alle- 
p^iance by polden ties, by j;iving them the promise of everything which they may 
a«sk out of the Treasury. 

He is more correctly reported in the New York Herald, as follows : 

He, representing the democrats of the North, would say that if there was a man . 
who professed to belong to the democracy of the South simply for the reason that 
the doors of the Treasury were to be opened to them, the sooner they went over 
the better for them and the better for the democratic party. When the people of 
the country felt that they could trust the Treasury and the interests of the Gov- 
ernment with the democratic party, with no dangei- of the demociats of the North 
selling out body and soul to the democrats of the South, that party could gather 
recruits in the Northern States that would fill up its ranks to the maximum, and 
it would have no need of that class of gentlemen whom it could hold only by giving 
them all they wanted. 

The gentleman from New Hampshire, [Mr. Blair,] speaking of the 
Texas and Pacific Railroad, while opposed to the bill reported, said: 

I have no doubts of the power of Congress, in its discretion, to make this appro- 
priation, nor would I from any motive withhold from the great South or Southwest 
any boon which I would ask for other portions of our vast domain. The man who 
his not survived the ha4:es of the war should have perished in it. "We are, thank 
God ! one people, and onlj' one i)eople. I pity the man who cannot see through and 
beyond this solid South and the wrongs by which she became and seeks to remain 
80," and the North rapidly solidifying in self-defense and for the rights of humanity, 
a solid nation, as indivisible and perpetual as the mountain- chains which bind them 
together, or the rolling girdle with which the Father of Waters forever clasps the 
teeming bosom of his bride. 

The sun of our Austerlitz rose on the clouds of war, but has set in the glories of 
victory ; and when this night of turbulent transition shall have passed away, as it 
will pass away, so sure as the revolutions of the universe proceed, the sun of peace 
and union will stand still in our heavens, not w^hile some brief mortal wills it, but 
a full-orbed star, blazing in the zenith so long as the planet itself is inhabited by 
mankind. 

And. sir, I would vote for any wise and necessary measure which will enlarge 
©ur commerce abroad as well as at home ; any measure which will open to us new 
markets for the productions of every industry, whether northern or western or 
southern, or which will increase the demand for them, wherever one now exist.s, 
provided that individual or coiporate enterprise is unable to accomplish the desired 
result. 

When the West was in its infancy it was nurtured by the South 
with a fostering hand. Southern democrats aided Douglas on his 
Illinois Central Railroad bill. And when Mr. Pierce vetoed the bill 
to improve the Saint Clair Flats, very similar to the bill for the im- 
]>rovement of tlie Mississippi River, it was passed in a democratic 
Senate by a two-third vote over the veto, and Mississippi democrats 
stood by the democracy of Michigan. 

Recently, when I was nominated for Congress the convention in- 
fliorsed the Texas Pacific and at the same time the Northern Pacific 
Railroad bill. 

I warned northern democrats last Session that a refusal to recog- 
nize the just demands of the South might result in the defeat of 
southern democrats and the sending of other Representatives here 
who would form alliances with other parties. The rapid growth of 
independent candidates iii the South has already. sustained my decla- 
ration. I do cot now take back a single line nor a single word of 
what I then uttered; but, recognizing that there are two clavSses of 
democrats and two of republicans, I repeat what I then said, that I 
hope the solid South may still be solid for the democratic party, but 
for that portion of it which has the courage and manliness to treat 
TAfi as equals and not as inferiors in this Union. 

The ueiitleman from Wisconsin, after luiving slept on my speech 



6 

almost a year and after ''iinisiiig his wrath to keep it warm." now 
comes forward to excommunicate me from the democratic church and 
to give a general ticket-of-leave to all southern men w^ho dare to ask 
justice and an equal distribution of appropriations from the Federal 
Treasury. He assumes to speak in the name of the northern demo- 
crats, and even if he bad authority thus to speak I must say that this is 
the first time I ever heard of a minority undertaking to turn out the 
majority of a party. But this great leader from the solid tlemocratic 
State of Wisconsin now proposes to show me to the door of the demo- 
cratic party ; and w4ien the South asks but a small proportion of the 
Government aid that has been given to the North he treats her like 
a mendicant, and, with all the arrogance of Diedrich Von Beekman to 
old Rip Van Winkle in his own house, says, " Give her a cold potato 
and let her go." He proclaimed as the representative of northern 
democrats thatthey would not sell out body and soul to southern demo- 
crats. He rather intimated that he could do better and get more re- 
cruits in the North without a solid South than with it. 

But, Mr. Speaker, I would like to know who made him the salesman 
of the northern democracy. I would like to know how many north- 
ern democrats he could deliver if he could find a purchaser, and I 
would especially like to know w^here he would find a purchaser for 
such democrats as he has shown himself to be. During the revolu- 
tionary war, when the British held the city of New York and our troops 
were encamped some distance above, there were guerrilla bands operat- 
ing between the lines that were called " the Cow Boys and the Skin- 
ners." They were composed of deserters from both armies, and while 
they belonged to neither side they robbed indiscriminately from both 
and fled in the utmost terror wiieu danger approached. 

The gentleman from Wisconsin reminds me of these bands. He 
strikes first on one side and then on the other ; but whenever a ques- 
tion comes up requiring the fearless courage of manhood to do justice 
to the South he rushed in frantic terror into the ranks of the most 
stalwart republicans to shelter his political head. If such men are 
democrats, I would like to know upon what principle of democracy 
they stand. When the war was over democratic soldiers met again- 
as friends, and were ready to forgive on both sides ; and when repub- 
licanism undertook to press the result of the war beyond the restora- 
tion of the Union and to the utter destruction of States' rights, men 
who had fought to save the Union said " Stop !" The new principle of 
the democratic party was peace and restoration — that the dead past 
might bury its dead, and that the bloody shirt shoifld wave alone 
from the flag-pole of republican bummers. But the gentleman from 
Wisconsin has found a bloodier shirt than ever waved from, the bat- 
tlements of the republican party, and he is stretching his legs in a 
frantic eff'ort to climb up to the republican platform and rob them of 
their last banner. He says, when we talk to him about thirty-four 
millions in the Treasury, the lU'oceeds of captured and abandoned prop- 
erty, which the Supreme Court has held belongs to Southern citizens, but 
which they are barred from obtaining by a statute of limitations, that 
he will remind us of the war debt and the blood of Union soldiers for 
which the South is responsible. I would remind the gentleman that 
the war debt is not yet paid, and that the cotton and tobacco States- 
have paid and are now paying far more of this debt than the State 
which he represents. 

And as he has demanded a balance of accounts to be struck, I would 
ask him to calculate the value of four millions of slaves set free, the 
princely estates destroyed, the millions paid in pensions to Unioui 



soldiers and the decoration of national cemeteries, and the miilions 
yet to be paid under the back-pension bill recently adopted, in all of 
which we bear onr full proportion, and he will find that the balance of 
accounts is as largely in our favor as the ditference in appropriations 
for internal improvements have been against us. But when the gen- 
tleman pleads the blood of Union soldiers as a set-off against the repay- 
ment of our money unlawfully taken since the war, he has reached a 
depth that the bitterest republican in the House has not yet descended 
to. With the skill of a camp-meeting funeral exhorter he harrows up 
our souls with a fearful picture of " a sea of blood," hecatombs of 
mangled bodies weltering in their gore, the groans of the dying and the 
cold chill of death, and asks us to look on this picture thkt we may 
not claim the money filched from our pockets. Like the junior mem- 
ber of "Quirk, Gammon, & Snap" he demands a pecuniary salve to 
soothe his woundied spirit. If his argument means anything, it means 
that we are to remain as inferiors in this Union, branded with the 
mark of Cain, with no rights except to pay taxes, and no powers except 
to fill offices with northern democrats. If he is a democrat I am not. 
One word more, Mr. Speaker, and I am don© with this subject. The 
gentleman talked very flippantly about men in the South who pro- 
fessed to belong to the democratic party. If I am correctly informed 
he has made professions on both sides ; and I would reply to his sum- 
mary dismissal of a certain supposed class of southern democrats that 
if there are any sore-headed or disappointed republicans in the North 
who cannot get into Congress without x>utting on the lion's skin of 
democracy, they should be very careful not to open their mouths too 
wide when they get here. 



SPEECH 



HON. C. E. HOOKER 



The House having under consideration the bill (H. R. No. t;i31) for the rel-ei- of 
Maggie Barron, Henry P. Gorman, and Walter Gorman — 

Mr. HOOKER said : 

Mr. Speaker : On the 21st of last month the gentleman from West 
Virginia [Mr. Martix] presented to the consideration of the House 
a bill the object and purpose of which was to transfer to the Court 
of Claims the consideration of a certain claim made by minor heirs^ 
which could not be passed upon by the committee that had had the 
subject under consideration. When that claim was presented I took 
occasion to say, in response to some things that fell from my friend 
from New York, [Mr. Potter,] that I thought all claims of this de- 
scription ought to be referred to the courts of the country and that 
i was in favor of referring this claim in that way. The following 
are my remarks on that occasion : 

Mr. Martin. I yield for a few moments to the gentleman from Mississippi , 

[Mr. HOOKEE.] 

Mr. Hooker. I desire to say in response to what has fallen from the gentleman 
fion: New York. ,'^Mr. Pon f.k.'j on this side of the House, that 1 think if he under- 



8 

stoot] properly tho proi>o.sitions of his own bill ho would not liave criticisod the 
one offered by this committee in the wa.y^ he has done. Every claim against the 
Government should stand upon its own foundation. As I understand the provis- 
ions of this bill, it simply proposes to compensate parties whose goods were taken 
by the Government of the United States, and who were minors at the time, and 
who, therefore, were not embraced within the provisions of the former law. tlpon 
every principle which belongs to that law for which the gentleman from New York 
expresses so much respect, I undertake to assert that neither in the country from 
which we borrow alike our laws and our language nor in any other civilized com- 
munity has there ever been a statute of limitations that did not exempt minora, 
femmes coverts, insane persons, and those incapable of taking advantage of the 
law. The bill introduced by the gentleman from New York himself, to which I 
gave my assent, proposed to include claims, just and proper in themselves, pre- 
sented by loyal citizens ; and if the gentleman fiom New York had had the mis- 
fortune to go from New York to reside for a year or two in the'South and had there 
had all his property destroyed by the Union Army while he himself was loyal in 
Mississippi as he had been loyal in New York, would he not have thougnt it a 
very hard thing if his Government had said, "We will not pay this debt?" 

Why, sir, his own proposition proposes the following : 

''Beit enacted, dc, That any person who may have a claim against the United 
States of which the Court of Claims would not now have jurisdiction, but founded 
upon equity and justice, and not barred by the statute of limitation provided by 
the laws of the United States, may file his' claim in that court." 

The man above all men who stood higher than all others in judicial acumen apd 
legal learning, Judge Story, said that it was a disgrace to this tree and enlightened 
country when in the most despotic governments in the Old World a citizen who 
liad a claim against the government had a right to go to the court and demand hia 
pay. 

There was no such right here ; and this sentiment thus uttered by this great 
lawyer and iudge was carried out in the Court of Claims. 

And now, 'sir, to-day you have in the Treasury of the United States $34,000,000 
of captured and abandoned property. You have $15,000,000 which you acknowl- 
edge does not belong to the Government of the United States, and never can be 
mingled with tiie other funds in the Treasury, but it must stand there forever as 
a sacred fund to pay debts you acknowledged that you gathered from those who 
were loyal in the South. 

And while I admit that there are few exceptions to this, yet I know that there 
were some persons Who were loyal there, and if you took their property you did it 
as a trustee, with the intention and purpose when they came with their claims to 
return it to them, and this is one of that class of claims. 

In regard to this particular claim I mast be permitted to say that 
until it was reported to the House I was not aware that such a claim 
was in existence. I do not know the parties ; they do not reside in the 
congressional district which I have the honor to represent. I have 
never had any correspondence with them or any one representing 
them. Hence, when 1 spoke upon this claim I simply. spoke with a 
view to transferring to the courts, where I believed it properly be- 
longed, tho power to decide upon the questions involved in the claim. 

Now, sir, when you come to look at the history of the law passed 
on tho :kl of March, 1871, creating a southern claims commission, you 
will find that when it was under discussion in the Senate, Senators 
who opposed the bill in the form in which it now stands upon the 
statute-book (and among thepi a gentleman so distinguished as a 
lawyer and in the ranks of the republican party as Mr. Edmunds, 
and a republican so distinguished as a lawyer and statesman as the 
late Senator Morton) declared that it was an outrage to create a spe- 
cial tribunal in which a southern man who claimed to be loyal could 
prosecute his claim against the Government while you had another 
and a difterent tribunal in which similar claims of other persons were 
presented. But those in favor of the bill as it now stands on the 
itatute-book prevailed, and urged that there should be a special 
southern claims commission; and upon a yea-and-nay vote in the 
Senate the bill was passed in the form in which it now stands cre- 
ating a commission to audit the claims of southern loyalists. 

The second section of the bill provides that the President shall be, 



and be is her(;by, authorized to nominate, and by and with the advice 
and consent of the Senate appoint, a board of commissioners, to be 
designated as commissioners of chiims, to consist of three commis- 
sioners, who shall be commissioned for two years, and whose duty 
it shall be to receive, examine, and consider the justice and validity 
of such claims as shall be brought before them of those citizens who 
remained loyal adherents to the cause and the Government of the 
United States during the war, for stores or supplies taken or fur- 
nished during the rebellion for the use of the Army of the United 
States in Stales proclaimed as in insurrection against the United 
States, including the use or loss of vessels or boats while employed 
in the military service of the United States. 

The law goes on further to provide that the loyalty of the claimant 
shall be established as a condition-precedent to his having any status 
before the commission. 

When this bill was under discussion in the Senate, on March 3, 
1871, the late Senator Morton said : 

1 desire tcTstate briefly why I cannot vote for this report. I am in favor of put- 
ting the loyal men of the South and of the Xorth precLsely on the same footing, 
with the same rights to sue or to prefer claims in the same tribunals and before 
the same departments of the Government. I am in favor of perfect equality on 
this subject. This bill provides for a difierent tribunal for the loyal claimants of 
the South from that to which the loyal claimants of the North may resort. It 
preserves the inequality by establishing a new tribunal for southern claimants, 
and when their claims have been passed upon it makes no p^o^^siou for their pay- 
ment. They are to be reported to Congress, and then perhaps they are no nearer 
being paid than they are now. I am in favor of the amendment as it passed the 
Senate, to allow the loyal men of the South to go into the Court of Claims, or to go 
to the Quartermaster-General, or to the Commissary-General, on the precise terms 
that loyal men of the North can, and when they shall establish their claims on the 
same principles then they shall be paid. This is a mere circumlocution arrange- 
ment by which, after the testimony has been taken and a vast report comprising 
thousands of pages of testimony has been submitted to Congress, men will be u» 
nearer having their claims paid'than they are now. I prefer to stand by the bill 
as it passed the Senate. — Congressional Globe and Ajypendix, third session, Forty- 
tirst Congress. 

A standing committee of this House was appointed to which were 
referred all questions of this desctiijtion. That committee at present 
is composed of six democrats and five republicans, my friend from 
Illinois [Mr. Eden] being chairman. This bill came here, as I am in- 
formed, with the sanction of that entire committee, and it simply 
proposes to clothe the courts of the country with power to pavSS, first, 
upon the loyalty of the claimants, and secondly, upon the legality oi 
the claim. My speech, therefore, which I have embodied in the re- 
marks. I make to-daj^, was designed 8imi)]y to advocate the idea that 
all these claims should be referred to tribunals constituted uuder the 
law to pass upon such questions, and to do what the prominent leaders 
of the republican party in the Senate proposed to do when the bill 
to create the southern claims commission was under discussion. 

On the following day, when I chanced to be absent for a few min- 
utes from the Hall, a response was made by the honorable member from 
Wi.sconsin [Mr. Bragg] to this speech of mine, in which he undertook 
to say and evidently supposed (as it was said one of the parties, the 
beneficiary, came from Mississippi and the other two came from Ten- 
nesvsee) tliat the claim came from the Vicksburgh district. That was 
not true in point of fact. He also said in my absence from the Hall 
that I was singing pjeans to the loyalty of the people of Vicksburgh 
and of that district, and was pressing their claims upon the Congress 
of the United States on the ground of their loyalty. Sir, that was a 
gross mistake on the part of the honorable member from Wisconsin. 



.10 

He went on further, and tnkint;' this speech of mine and the present- 
ation of this bill as the basis of his remarks, made a declaration that 
there existed on the part of southern denii>crats upon this lloor a dis- 
position to put their hands improperly into the Treasury of the United 
States and to appeal to the northern democracy to aid them to ac- 
complish this purpose. Where did the honorable member from Wis- 
consin get the facts upon which he dared in this Hall to make such 
an accusation against the democratic party North and South ? Did 
he find any foundation for such a statement in the bill itself ? Did 
he find it in one single utterance of southern men on this floor? If 
he did not, then why did he make the charge Avhich was, I affirm, a 
slander alike upon northern democrats and southern ? 

Mr. Speaker, in our action on this floor we are not to be deterred 
by the idiosyncrasies of any man who chooses to mark out a peculiar 
course for himself from voting for whatever we think is right ; and 
I hold that every claim against the Government should be so abso- 
httely and so completely divorced from political sentiment that no 
honorable man sitting upon either side of this Chamber, when a claim 
is presented against the Government, would seek to luake it a polit- 
ical question upon which parties can divide. 

Sir, if every member on this side of the House feels it his duty to- 
vote against this bill, I can have no cause to quarrel with or com- 
ment upon his action. If every member on the other side chooses to 
vote against this bill, I have no right to call in question the propriety 
of his action. In the administration of a law, and especially such a 
law as this, right and justice demand that the law shall be divorced 
from politics ; that we, sitting here as administrators of the law, shall 
pass upon all these questions according to the justice and the right 
under the law, and not as partisans. 

It is, Mr. Speaker, a remarkable fact that while the Supreme Court 
of the United States in repeated decisions, in Klein's case and iu 
Padelford's case and iu a number of other cases, held that a par- 
don by general amnesty proclaimed by the President restores the 
oifender to the same status iu court as if the offense had never been 
committed, yet the southern claims commission, looking to the law 
of its creation, has never relaxed the rule requiring proof of loyalty 
as a condition -precedent to any and all recoveries. 

Sir, the honorable gentleman from Wisconsin in making this charge 
against southern and northern democrats will not let us forget owr 
recent unfortunate civil contest. He has taken up the role of bloody- 
shirt shaker which had been abandoned by the liberal-hearted men 
of the opposite side of the House, as illustrated in the utterance 
of the distinguished gentleman fron\ Ohio [Mr. Garfield] some time 
since, when he predicted that any man who dared to appeal to sec- 
tional jealousies and sectional animosities on this floor would ap- 
peal in vain ; and, sir, I hope that this appeal will fall powerless to 
effect this object whether it comes Ironi one side of this Chamber 
or the other. 

I say I cannot be led to forget the union which I have with the 
northern democracy, that when the war closed we found a gallant, 
band of men in the minority on this floor, some of whom are here 
now, who, whenever measures of legislation were proposed which 
were intended to let the iron heel of war still oppress the South — I 
can never forget that there stood a gallant minority on the floor, led 
by the honorable member from Penjisylvauia who now occupies the 
Speaker's chair, resisting every efl'ort of oppression, that bantied them- 
seh'es together to do what, Mr. Speaker? To unite with the south- 



11 

era democracy for the purpose of getting;: money from the Treasury ? 
No, sir ; and I hope the gentleman from Wisconsin did not represent 
the northern democracy when he uttered such sentiments ; hut to 
unite in restoring the Government to the orbit in which the Constitu- 
tion bids it move. 

There we stood, with our rights upon this floor, and every gentle- ^ 
man upon the other side of the Chamber, taking the position under ' 
the Union, under the Government, and under the Constitution as 
equals of every other Representative from every, other State, and for 
this reason, that vre in the South felt we had found able and manly 
defenders on the part of the northern democracy who were willing 
to throw the mantle of oblivion over the incidents of the war. 
If these claims are right, then '* let the dead past bury its dead." 
Sir, the object and purpose of our union with the northern democ- 
racy was to develop the great and material resources of our country 
and to restore to it peace and prosperity. These are the grounds upon 
which the northern democracy and southern democracy shook hands 
upon this floor, and he who asserts that we are bound together by 
any other sentiment, or he who believes otherwise, may possibly be 
capable of being guilty of the act he ascribes so glibly to others, and 
may take to himself the homely old French adage, " Honi soil qui mai 
y pense." 

We have never supposed any other hond of union than right and 
justice, and if any one supposes there is any other I say that it has 
never been thought of by those who represent the South. It reminds 
me, sir, of an instance that occurred in the Senate, as an illustration of 
the sentiment. One Senator said he did not know that there was 
anything in the rules which would prevent a Senator from going to 
the Clerk's desk and changing his record of votes. "No," said an- 
other Senator, "there is nothing to prevent it; but it has never 
been heretofore suggested in this Hall that such a thing was possible 
on the part of any Senator." So that— suposing that there could be 
any combination between the northern and southern democracy^by 
which these southern claims were to be presented against the Treas- 
ury of the United States unjustly and improperly — with reference to 
these claims, they were presented to Congress*under a law which 
was passed when' both branches of the Legislature were under con- 
trol of the republican party, and. the bill itself was approved by a re- 
j>ublican President. 

It was an act of simple justice to that part of the southern people 
Avho were loyal, and characterized by the most prominent of the 
republicans as only unjust in prescribing one forum for southern loyal 
claimants and another and a ditterent forum to try the cases of north- 
ern loyal men. 

When I came to look at the record in the cases I found that there 
were but nine cases from the State of Mississippi. A large number 
came from Tennessee, where you had lifty thousand troops in the 
Union Army. A large portion came from Maryland and some from 
the extreme Northern States; but, wherever they came from, if you 
chose to pass a law in Ifill so that a man could show that he was loyal 
and present his claim for that which the Government had the use 
of shall it be said that the Government will say, " I will not consider 
the claims ?" As I said the other day, it was the remark of Judge 
Story that while in the most despotic countries of the Old World a 
citizen could sue the government of the country, in this enlightened 
free country we never had a tribunal in which the citizen could force 
the Government to pay hi in what was due him until, as I say, the 
law was passed in l-7(;\vir)i 1iniife<l jurisdiction. 



12 

Sir, tbis law was passed by a republican House aud a republican 
Senate and approved by a republican Executive. As to tbe money 
whicb the gentleman from Wisconsin asks us to take our eyes from, 
the $:>4,000,^tX10 of captured aud abandoned property, why does he 
want us to take our eyes from it ? Does he bave any disposition to 
•take any portion of it for himself ? Why, sir, the Supreme Court has 
decided in a number of cases that this captured and abandoned jirop- 
erty is a trust fund in the Treasury of the United States for the pur^ 
pose of paying such claims for captured and abandoned property as 
could come from the South alone. 

A portion of it has been paid out by the Secretary of the Treasury 
by adjudications, but there remained fourteen millions of this fund, 
a large portion of which was the fund gathered from the South after 
tbe war, and when arms had been stacked aud when the country was 
at peace. A large portion of this property was gathered from the 
South and put into the Treasury of the United States, and afterward 
sold by Draper &, Co., auctioneers, in New York, the money derived 
from which remained in the hands of the Treasurer until 18G8, when 
by a joint resolution of the two Houses it was covered into the 
Treasury. 

Sir, what would be said of a court of chancery if you were to say, 
" Oh ! don't talk about paying these claims, because it has to come 
out of a trust fund, which is a large one." 

It would be the first time in a court of justice that the chancellor 
had listened to such an argument, aud it would be the only time that 
a claim, however just, however honest, was rejected because of the 
amount involved. The fishery award of five aud a half millions of 
dollars was thought to be exorbitant by our Government, but they 
paid it. The arrearages of pensions was thought to be almost an act 
of bankruptcy, but it was regarded the due of the soldiers and was 
paid. 

Sir, we of the South have sat here at this session and at former 
sessions, aud have voted millions aud millions of dollars to pay arrear- 
ages of pensions, other millions to pay pensions, $5,500,000 for the 
fisheries award, and numerous claims, and we have never asked a 
question as to where the money was to go. But now, when a single 
citizen comes up and it is proposed upon the unanimous report of 
your committee to allow him to present his claim to our own tribunal, 
then you say, " No, that will not do, for the tribunal may decide the 
claim to be just, aud it is too large a claim to be paid." 

I uudeirtake to assert that when the honorable member from Wis- 
consin [Mr. Bragg] or anyone else holds that there is a disposition 
on the part of a single man who sympathized with the South during 
the war to bring forward and urge fraudulent and unfounded claims 
against the Government of the United States he asserts what is not 
true. A large portion of the claims on your Calendar were presented 
years ago, long before a single democrat from the Southern States 
took his seat in these Halls. 

I will remark in conclusion of what I have to say that I deny the 
right of any man to speak for the democracy of the South who charges 
them with presenting any claims that are false aud fraudulent against 
the Government. Tliough uot coming from that section myself, but 
with that spirit of unity of feeling which belongs to all men'claiming 
to be animated by a sense of justice, I hope I may speak for the democ- 
racy of the North when I say that we stand here united for the main- 
tenance of the Constitution, the Government, and the laws, aud not. 
infiuenced by any ulterior or selfish motives. 



13 
, SPEECH 

OF 

HON. 0. K. SINGLETON 



The House havinor under coosidei^ation tbe bill (H. H. Xo. C131) for the reliff o± 
Maggie Barron, Henry P. Gorman, and Walter Gurmau— 

Mr. SINGLETON said : 

Mr. Speaker: It is with sincere reluctance that I rise to take part 
in this debate. As long as charges such as were made by the gentle- 
man from Wisconsin [Mr. Bragg] against the South were confined 
to the republican side of this House and to the Senate I felt inclined 
to allow them to pass unnoticed, because I believed their purpose 
was to make political capital by drawing us into heated and impru- 
dent discussions. Bat when the reproach is taken up by one who 
professes to be a democrat, and who intimates that southern Repre- 
sentatives and their constituents are held in the line of democracy 
simply by the hope of plunder to be obtained under the plea of loy- 
alty of a part of our citizens, I think it is time I should speak for 
myself and the section of couutry which I in part represent. 

The gentleman from Wisconsin, [Mr. Bragg,] w^hose reconversion 
to democracy was quite as sudden, if not as important and interest- 
ing, as that of St. Paul to Christianity, has thought proper to make 
this charge indirectly against the South. Now, sir, I aver upon this 
floor and before the country that such a declaration is one of the most 
unfounded and unjust slanders ever put upon any portion of the peo- 
ple of the United States. Let us look for a moment to the facts of 
the case. 

During the war, Mr. Speaker, " loyalty," as it was termed, which 
meant adherence to the Federal as' against the confederate govern- 
ment, was at such a discount in the South as to produce social ostra- 
cism, and the man who proclaimed it openly scarcely felt his life se- 
cure. He was considered as an enemy to the South and to his people. 
Such was the intensity of feeling against these sentiments that men 
only uttered them with bated breath. 

After the war was over the people of the North, appreciating what 
they termed ''loyalty" and resolved to show their appreciation of such 
acts and opinions, established courts before which the claims of this 
class of citizens were to be heard and determined, and invited " loyal" 
men to come and propound them for settlement. These courts were 
organized with Union men as judges, who were lynx-eyed in their 
researches and deemed able to detect any fraud or imposition intended 
by what were called " rebels." When the cases were decided adversely 
to claimants they had the right of appeal to the Congress itself to 
revise the decisions of those courts. These tribunals were not estab- 
lished by southern men, much less by " rebels," but by Union men, 
northern democrats as well as rexjublicaus. When parties litigant 
could not get their claims through the courts fast enough they came 
to Congress where their claims have been urged in large numbers and 
millions of dollars have been paid upon them. " Rebels " had no part 
nor lot in all this matter. And even now be it known that we only 
introduce bills for our constituents — uot that we indorse them, nor 



14 

that we come to the footstool of power and beg yon to give tliese peo- 
ple what may or may not be due to them, but we do it because they 
are our constituents and have a right to our services in this matter. 
It is for gentlemen of this House to determine the question whether 
the claims are proper or not. 

The gentleman talks about x^ecuniary losses sustained by his section 
during the war. If you will take into account the four million of 
slaves which were liberated, for which we received no compensation, 
you will find they were worth about $200,000,000. Add to this our 
losses by the depreciation, destruction, and confiscation of other prop- 
erty and the amount is almost beyond computation. Besides this, 
every battle, with a few exceptions, was fought upon southern soil, 
followed by spoliation and ruin. Your losses were not such as ours. 
I state these facts in no spirit of complaint, but simply for the truth 
of history. We went into the war with our eyes open, determined to 
win at all hazards, risking all we had upon the result. 

It is not to be denied, however, that while the war was in progress 
many citizens in the North amassed immense fortunes by the manu- 
facture of arms, munitions of w^ar, clothing, and other necessary army 
supplies, aAd that in many localities the ravages and hardships of 
the war were scarcely felt. Not so with us. Its disastrous effects 
were felt everywhere. As to the losses of men in the respective sec- 
tions, I have but a word to say. While the North by hiring substi- 
tutes and giving bounties to enlisted men was incurring a large pro- 
portion of the debt we are now endeavoring to pay off, there was 
scarcely a household in all the South which was not draped in mourn- 
ing for the loss of father, husband, brother, or son. 

The fighting we did was at the cost of the best blood of the South, 
while you were enabled by reason of having control of the Treasury 
of the United States to give bounty money to foreigners who fought 
your battles. I reiterate the statement that I am not complaining ; 
I am uttering no reproach ; but only declaring what yourselves know 
to be true. 

Eead us out of the party ! Let me state a few facts which perhaps 
you have forgotten. Out of the thirteen Presidents of the United 
States elected up to the war we gave you seven — Washington, Jef- 
ferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Polk, and Taylor; you gave us 
six — the elder and younger Adams, Van Buren, Harrison, Pierce, and 
Buchanan. 

Mr. TOWNSEND, of New York. You took seven. 

Mr. SINGLETON. The people elected them, and every part of the 
country accepted and honored them. I wish to say another thing to 
my friend from New York, not by way of taunt, but as a fact in his- 
tory : while five southern Presidents were elected a second time, no 
northern President up to the war ever served more than four years. 

Mr. TOWNSEND, of New York. You could not stand a northern 
man more than four years ; you always beat our men the second time. 

Mr. SINGLETON. I cannot yield further for interruptions. 

During this period power was in the hands of southern Presidents 
forty-eight years, in the hands of northern twenty-four years. Did 
not the country prosper the while, and why, then, should we be read 
out of the party ? Out of one hundred and thirty-six Cabinet officers 
of the United States up to the war we gave you sixty-seven — only 
one less than given by the North, having double our representation 
in Congress. Of Secretaries of State we gave you thirteen out of 
twenty-three ; of Attorneys-General, seventeen out of twenty-nine ; 
of Secretaries of War, seventeen out of thirty -two. We have never 



15 

bad a Prcsideut who fsci/t'd ni>()ii tliat oCtice a;;aiiist tlie will of tlie 
people. We have never had a Secretary wlio waH charfjed and cou- 
A-icted of corrnplion or who ever nold the oltices at his disposal. 

Mr. TOWNSEXD, of New York. What of Floyd, and Jake Thomp- 
BOD of your own State ? 

Mr. SINGLETON. The gentleman feels the force of what I have 
said, and I do not blame him at all that he squirms under it. The 
charges agaiust Floyd and Thompsim were nothing more than repub- 
lican slanders. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, 1 wish to say another thing which may have 
been forgotten. Every l)attle which was fought by our troops up to 
the late war in defense of the national honor or to repel invasion was 
fought under a southern President and (mr armies commanded by 
southern officers. The war of 1812 was begun and finished under the 
administration of Mr. Madison, General Jackson having broughtit 
to a successful close. In this contest the principle of the right of 
search and the doctrine of expatriation were settled. The war of 184G 
was carried on under the administration of Polk, a democrat and 
southern man ; Scott and Taylor being the commanders of the Army. 

I state further that there is not a foot of territory that has ever 
been acquired, either by purchase or conquest, outside of Alaska, that 
was acquired under any other than a southern President, not except- 
ing the State of the gentleman from Wisconsin. 

Now, sir, let the gentleman from Wisconsin consider these facts 
and say whether he thinks he has the right to read the South out of 
the party. Why, Mr. Speaker, if what I have heard of his political 
history be true, he is but a babe in democracy and needs to be fed 
upon the milk of the word until he shall have grown stronger, and 
even then he ought to tarry at Jericho till his beard is grown before 
he assumes to excommunicate the fathers in Israel and essays to be 
a leader in the party. [Laughter.] 

It is said of the Greek poet Anacreon when he undertook on one 
occasion to change the notes of his harj), which had been accustomed 
only to songs of love, that he might celebrate deeds of arms and give 
out heroic strains, although his harp was strung anew for that pur- 
pose it refused to sound any but its accustomed notes of love. And 
so it may be with the gentleman from W^isconsin, who has been so in 
the habit of abusing southern democrats on account of "southern 
claims" and "raids upon the Treasury" that now his mouth refuses 
to speak anything luit abuse of his southern party friends. 

I hope, Mr. Speaker, we shall have no more of this. I am willing 
to shake hands with my brother, [Mr. Bkagg,] and with him bury 
the hatchet, that hereafter as democrats we shall be united. Unity 
in a party implies equality, and would that gentleman have us occupy 
a position inferior to his own ? If so, 1 tell him it will not be done. 
Why, sir, out of the one hundred and fifty-seven members of our party 
on this lioor the South has ninety- four, while the North has only sixty- 
three. If these southern gentlemen should take leave of the northern 
democrats, there is no telling what would be their fate ; and yet you 
would read us out of the party ! I trust southern Representatives 
are democrats from principle. We could long since, if we had ad- 
hered to party only for the loaves and fishes, have sold out to our 
friends on the other side of the ECouse. [Laughter.] They are always 
ready for a trade. [Continued laughter.] You can learn that from 
the investigation which is now going on in the lower story of this 
building, where proof is being made that offices were sold to raise 
money for party purposes. 



IG 

No, sir, we are not now, as we never Lave been, in market. Fully 
believing tbat this Government can only be administered safely upon 
The principles of the democratic party, We cast our fortunes in with 
it and, shall share its fate be it good or bad. Talk no more to us of 
'' the cohesive power of public plunder." It is not a i3laut of south- 
ern growth. 

We are poor, it is true, but we are not ready to barter our honor, 
which has stood the test through all the past, for gold or the poor, 
emoluments of office. We have nothing to ask of northern democrats 
but even-handed justice. 

If the war is not ended, then raise troops and levy taxes to sup- 
press the rebellion. Do not make war upon us in this House in aa 
unmanly and covert way. If the war be over, then regard us as your 
equals and deal justly with us. 

Are we in the Union or are w^e out of it? If we are in it, then 
behave toward us as friends and not as enemies. If out of it, theu 
(iease to intermeddle with our affairs and leave us to manage them 
as best we may. Let us have no more of these family quarrels, for 
nothing is more disgusting to the general public. Let us help eacli 
other in all that is right, and counsel each other in matters of party 
fealty. Otherwise we can be of little use to you or you to us. 

Mr. HUMPHREY. That is as long as the gentleman from Wiscoii- 
BJn continues to run on the republican ticket. 

Mr. SINGLETON. Of that I have nothing more to say. It has not 
been my purpose to say anything harsh to my political friends nor 
to gentlemen on the other side of this House. I have attempted to 
vindicate our motives and show by reference to the history of the 
past that we are at least worthy of some degree of consideration and 
confidence. If I have succeeded in this my only purpose lias beeiu 
accomplished. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




012 028 936 6 



w-^ 







•i-i^ 



.M>\ 



